When Austin Russell was a 17-year-old high school student, he founded Luminar Technologies, which makes laser sensors that can help self-driving cars detect nearby objects. Now 28, Russell is the world's youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes, as Luminar competes with major companies like Tesla and Alphabet's Waymo. But self-driving cars aren't exactly commonplace on American roads, meaning Russell and Luminar have a lot of work ahead of them, despite their lofty valuations. How it differs from Tesla's approachElon Musk's Tesla also seeks to popularize self-driving cars, and Musk's approach to the technology is entirely different. Lidar could potentially change that, Russell says: Cameras can be helpful "for certain use cases," but lidar is "a huge step forward."

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Persons: Austin Russell, Russell, Waymo, —, Luminar, Elon Musk's Tesla, Mario Herger, Herger, Tesla Organizations: Luminar Technologies, CNBC, Forbes, Benz, Volvo, Stanford University, Thiel, Washington Post Locations: Orlando , Florida, U.S